Too much crafting- What's the difference?

[Wolfgang Hype]

Alright, so I'm making an artificer focused mostly on making pretty much anything, however in looking around I see crafting checks for Metalworking, blacksmithing, armorsmithing, and weaponsmithing. What's the difference here?

Seems like Blacksmithing or metalworking should cover all of them (granted, certain armor would fall under leatherworking instead, and I think the PHB says something about wooden armor with ironwood cast on it which would be carpentry). What's the big difference here? If they just had two to represent either armor and weapons or one for both armor and weapons and one for everything else it might make sense, but with four different skills it just seems ridiculous.

[Jeraa]

Making swords requires different tools and techniques than making horseshoes. Same with armor.

Weaponsmithing covers weapons, and armorsmithing covers armor. Both require different techniques. Blacksmithing covers more normal, everyday items - horseshoes, nails, pots, etc.

I don't see a "metalsmith" listed anywhere, but it would probably cover things like gold and silversmiths, who would use different tools and techniques than other smiths.

[Veyr]

Standard Craft options are (Alchemy), (Armorsmithing), (Bowmaking), (Trapsmithing), and (Weaponsmithing). Why (Bowsmithing) isn't included in (Weaponsmithing), I don't rightly know. If you're playing as/with a Warforged, your choice of (Armorsmithing), (Blacksmithing), (Gemcutting), and (Sculpting) would be nice, since that's how you repair Warforged.

[Gamer Girl]

It takes different craft knowledge to make different things. A swordsmith can't make a metal lock. It's the same in the modern world, if you know how to write a computer program, you can't also build a wooden table.

It's a bit unbalancing to say that there is a 'craft anything' skill and you can just dump ranks into it and craft anything(it's as bad as PF putting spot and listen in one skill).

Sure it's great if you have an all combat game to have less skills. Then you can dump most of your points into combat skills like spot and listen and intimidate. Then with all the maxed combat type skills you can 'win' every encounter.

A blacksmith traditional did dirty work(as in black). This was the guy making tools and such. Not a lot of fancy stuff, just strong stuff that would last.

A metalsmith(a whitesmith) did the fancy work. Taking hours and hours to make a candle stick with a snake that warped all the way around it.

[No brains]

A blacksmith traditional did dirty work(as in black). This was the guy making tools and such. Not a lot of fancy stuff, just strong stuff that would last.

A metalsmith(a whitesmith) did the fancy work. Taking hours and hours to make a candle stick with a snake that warped all the way around it.

Is that where that comes from? I had heard blacksmiths were called that because iron is black. Silver and gold smiths were luckier because gold and silver have their own special colors.

Anyway, there are some massive spiels out on the internet on how even sword making was massively different from any other weapon craft. Swords required a specific blend of both hardness and plasticity while still being able to hold a keen edge. Most other weapons just needed to be hard and not even amazingly sharp.

What's more ridiculous are the item creation feats. Hello!? A magic ring IS a wondrous item!

[WinWin]

It's campaign or table specific. One group may allow a 'Metalcrafter' or blacksmith to craft weapons and armour. Another group might place limitations or impose a penalty for specific crafts. Others may disallow broad crafting skills entirely.

In my experience it falls into the same grey area as proffession skills and knowledges.

[Gnoman]

Is that where that comes from? I had heard blacksmiths were called that because iron is black. Silver and gold smiths were luckier because gold and silver have their own special colors.

Anyway, there are some massive spiels out on the internet on how even sword making was massively different from any other weapon craft. Swords required a specific blend of both hardness and plasticity while still being able to hold a keen edge. Most other weapons just needed to be hard and not even amazingly sharp.

What's more ridiculous are the item creation feats. Hello!? A magic ring IS a wondrous item!

Blacksmith/whitesmith has nothing to do with "fancy" verses "functional" or the colour of the item. Blacksmiths did high heat work. They had to use coke (processed coal) do do this work. This produced soot. Spend all day at the forge, you come out covered in soot. Soot is black. Whitesmiths dealt with low heat metals. Gold, silver, and other such metals can be worked with little or even no heat, and never need much more than a common woodfire. Thus, they didn't have soot all over them.